Well the potatoes have been boiled, for the buttermilk mashed potatoes. The pumpkin cheesecake has baked. It's cooling in the oven currently. I wanted to get the cornbread cooked tonight, for the stuffing but it's already 11:30 PM. We might make a run to the grocery store for durkee onions, cranberries and a baster.

The full menu is: buttermilk mashed potatoes, cornbread and sausage stuffing, green bean cassarole, buttermilk biscuits, cranberry sauce, maple (maybe) glazed turkey and pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. And there's just two of us!

Uh. So busy. I love the holidays but dread the week leading up to them. I've done an extra 2.5 hours this week, roughly, and I think it will count as overtime. Plus I brought some work home. I have about 130 comic pages to proof. It shouldn't take more than an hour though, because I'm a quick checker. And 75% of the content on each page is the same all across the board. Shop talk. Enough.

I wanted to get some of the cupboards in order, which means I need to finish painting what I'm in the middle of. I don't want the kitchen to still be in shambles when we make Thanksgiving dinner or I will lose my mind. Wednesday will go towards straightening up the house. Tonight we need to do the shopping for Thanksgiving just so we aren't literally waiting to the very last possible minute. I want to keep the cooking fresh and homemade and I dread that by the time we get there, all that will be left is stove top stuffing and instant mashed potatoes. Oh and a pressed meat turkey breast. Yuck.

On the way home I passed the TV station. They are doing some sort of lighting ceremony tonight so there were loads of little kids dressed in Christmas garb/Christmas related costumes. Aww bless. So cute.

I'm paint-paint-painting away. The kitchen cabinets, that is. Sand, prime, paint a billion coats. It's time consuming, painstakingly so, but they look fabulous, if I do say so myself.

New business venture:

Super cheap kitchen redo

So I'm updating my kitchen a bit. No new appliances or anything like that. Just some painting, new hardware and some cute accessories. Here is my inspiration board.



1. Wading Pool- a la the Walmart Collection - $10/gallon
2. Milk Blue Chalaine Glass Cabinet Drawer Knobs $3.50/each; pulls are $6.50 each (ebay)
3. My cabinets basically look like this but are a cheap wood laminate. I will be painting them white and taking the doors off some for open cabinetry.
4. Tile. $10/each from ebay. I have one random 'inspirational' tile in the backsplash. I'd like to replace it with something like this or something a bit more sophisticated.
5. Food themed prints from nutandbee.etsy.com $6/each
6. I have 4x4 white tiles in the backsplash. Pretty plain. I'd like to maybe paint them these colors.

Belated birthday present from Adam!

I got a wacom tablet! My first one ever. And I just downloaded the AI trial. I figure if I like AI, I can use it at work, instead of having to buy it. We have the whole Adobe Creative Suite there anyway.

Say no to the fiance...

For some reason, on Say Yes to the Dress, which I don't really like anyway, I get angered when I see the groom accompany the bride to the store for dress shopping. Not because it's breaking tradition, but because why is the groom so involved in the picking of the dress? Why does he care so much? It's her dress. It makes me think that he has too much of a say in the relationship and is controlling. Hah! An assumption. All I know is that Adam wouldn't ever demand to accompany me to the wedding dress store if we were engaged.

On the hunt for chic eyeglasses

My newest search? Cool eyeglasses. I had my eyes rechecked at the beginning of October. My health insurance through work is kind of ehh in the eyeglasses realm. If I got them from eyemasters they'd still be about $130 plus tax, lenses included. That's pretty dang expensive considering I want more than one pair. I'm picky too. I've tried lots of frames on. I want plastic frames, maybe red in color. I want them to be medium to large sized but it seems all the stores have are small frames which make my face look even bigger and that's not my goal here. Walmart had some on the big side I really liked. They're really cheap, only about $60 for the frames only. My insurance isn't accepted there so I'd get about 10% off for that reason. Lenses are like $80 or something there, I don't remember. I then turned my search to ebay. I was hesitant, obviously, because you can't try anything on. But I won a pair of cheap vintage cats eyes and they were less than $10. Here they are:



And then I found some other more modern cat's eyes and I won them too. The guy selling them also was able to put prescription lenses in them and so, as of Monday, I'm the proud owner of a sweet pair of $40 glasses. Awesome. They pretty much look like my old glasses but I guess it makes sense why I was drawn to them.

Of course I can't just stop here. I'm bidding on another pair of eyeglasses on ebay and I might end up getting the walmart ones too. I can't resist. I might get the guy on ebay to throw some lenses into one of the vintage pairs as well.

Craft Room

I didn't die. I've just been busy decorating the casa. And being lazy per usual. Enjoying the fall weather and my new kitter Beans. He's super annoying though. Here's my most recently finished room, my craft room/studio.

Go check out the 20 other pictures on my flickr account. http://www.flickr.com/succotashandswank The room is a really light, powder blue. The last owners painted it this color. I don't hate it. I would have chosen something a tad darker. I think I'd feel better about this room if I had a daybed in there, in case we ever have over night guests. However, the room is really small, at about 8 feet wide and 10 feet long. Not to mention three doors that can't be blocked. This is the daybed I have my eye on,

It's from overstock and it's about $267. Two days ago it was like $230. Overstock also always has coupons of some sort out. It's not totally my style, but maybe with some pillows and a cute vintage throw blanket. Perhaps I could slap on some hairpin legs? I don't even know if that's possible. The room also needs some drapes, which I've been scouring ebay and urban outfitters for. I'd also like to get a roman shade and change out the ceiling fan for a pendant light of some sort.